Don’t we have enough concerns about the legitimacy of our elections without adding ranked choice voting into the mix?
Hard for some or easy for others isn’t the point. Fairness and getting the true winner of an election is the point. If an election is between two candidates, it’s fair to say the winner must achieve more than 50% of the vote. However, in an election between three or four candidates it becomes mathematically unrealistic for a winner to have to achieve that 50%. Then asking the electorate to pick a second or third choice effectively steals the majority first choice from the winning candidate and reruns the election between second and third choice candidates.
After reshuffling votes that way, few get their first choice candidate and the second or third choice “majority” winner who then ascends to the office isn’t really anybody’s true choice. It’s not a true “one man, one vote” election. It’s a second chance for lesser candidates to combine voters in a bid to beat the one who got the most votes to begin with, and who actually won the most 1st choice votes in a fair election of one vote per person.
Helga Fleischer
Salt Lake City